Unpacking Collaboration in Digital History Projects

Poster presented at DH2017, Montréal, Canada (8-11 August 2017). Poster design by Lindi Melse and Max Kemman.Abstract - Digital history is concerned with the incorporation of digital methods in historical research practices. Thus, digital history aims to use methods, concepts, or tools from other disciplines to the benefit of historical research, making it a form of methodological interdisciplinarity. This requires expertise of different facets, such as technology, history, and data management, and as a result many digital history activities are a collaboration of professionals and scholars from different backgrounds. Such collaborations would fit Svensson’s characterisation of digital humanities as a fractioned trading zone. Simply stated, this means first that digital humanities functions as heterogeneous collaborations, i.e. with participants from different backgrounds, and second that the participants act voluntarily. In this paper, we will investigate these two aspects in the context of digital history to understand how digital history projects function as heterogeneous collaborations, and what the participants’ incentives are for entering such collaborations. We will discuss this by presenting findings from interviews with practitioners in digital history projects, and reflections on projects in which the author himself has participated.